Republican lawmakers orchestrate a seismic shift in North Carolina policy

Saturday

Jul 27, 2013 at 12:01 AMJul 27, 2013 at 7:30 AM

Paul Woolverton Staff writer

The General Assembly's adjournment Friday ends seven months of some of the most significant and controversial changes in public policy in state history.

Freed from decades of Democratic legislative majorities and Democratic governors, the state's still-fresh Republican majority moved swiftly to implement its long-suppressed agenda.

Gun possession restrictions were loosened and abortion restrictions were tightened. Business and environmental regulations were eased.

A voter ID bill passed and voting restrictions were tightened. Income taxes were cut, sales taxes were expanded and some tax loopholes were closed.

The federal government's offer to expand government-paid medical care for poor people was rejected, as was the president's healthcare exchange to help the public shop for health insurance.

Unemployment benefits for recession-wracked workers were slashed to pay down a $2.5 billion debt, and, eventually, reduce the unemployment taxes that businesses pay.

Democrats howled that the changes are harmful to the poor, public education and racial minorities - and are ruining a state once seen as progressive.

Thousands of protesters filled the grounds and halls of the General Assembly on "Moral Mondays," and hundreds were arrested.

The strife drew the attention of the national news media.

The New York Times editorial board wrote an editorial headlined "The Decline of North Carolina."

The conservative editorial board of The Wall Street Journal responded with a column titled "Why Are North Carolina Liberals So @&%*! Angry?"

Republicans say the changes are necessary to rejuvenate North Carolina's economy, make it a safe, desirable place to live and move it forward as intended by the voters who gave the GOP control of all three branches of state government for the first time since 1870.

In a news release, the leadership of the House and Senate called the 2013 session of the General Assembly "highly productive" and "historic."

"Last fall, North Carolinians overwhelmingly elected a Republican governor and legislative supermajorities for the first time since the 19th century, entrusting us to strengthen our schools, reform our tax code, provide tax relief and empower the private sector to create jobs," Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger said in the news release. "Despite fierce resistance and overblown partisan rhetoric from the left, we did exactly what millions of voters asked us to do."

Democrats, including state Sen. Ben Clark of Hoke and Cumberland counties, question Berger's assessment. Clark, a freshman lawmaker, noted that the Republican majority draws some of its size from gerrymandered legislative districts.

"Some use the term, 'We've gone backwards.' Some say we've become more conservative. Some say we've veered to the right," Clark said. "But clearly the policies that have been championed by the Democrats for a long time now, especially in the areas of education and being socially conscious, if you will, trying to look out for the least among us, a lot of those policies and things are taking a back seat."

Clark said he found it "somewhat disconcerting and disheartening."

In his office Thursday evening, veteran Democratic Rep. Garland Pierce of Scotland County sat back in his chair and assessed his side's repeated losses.

"They've had their way. He who has the gold, makes the rules. Spoils go to the victors," said Pierce, who grew up in Fayetteville and is the chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus.

Outnumbered 77-43 in the House and 33-17 in the Senate, there was little the Democrats could do to stop the usually united Republican majority.

"In a way, they're to be commended for the way that they've held together on it, to hold it together, to keep everybody in line," Pierce said.

"Being here, this is my fifth term, I've been on the side with Democrats, we had control. We used our power in certain ways to push the things we wanted pushed," he said. "They did the same thing. If you've been around here long enough you understand: That's just the way it goes. Right, wrong or indifferent, fair or unfair, that's just the way it happens when you have power."

The pace of rightward lawmaking was breathtaking for supporters and opponents alike.

"North Carolina enacted more conservative reforms in 2013 than any other state has ever enacted in a single year," said John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation based in Raleigh.

Hood's conservative think tank has called for many of the policies that the Republicans implemented. Other states have similar laws but enacted them over longer periods of time, Hood said.

Two things drove the rapid reversal of Democratic policies, he said.

First, Republican demands for change had been pent up for years by the Democrats.

"These are Republican politicians who have been in the minority, or outside looking in, for a very long time," Hood said. "Now that they have control, they want to move ahead with their ideas."

Second, Hood said, the long-troubled economy demanded quick decisions to bring ideas into focus and turn them into law, such as a new tax code and regulatory reform.

"There was a sense that North Carolina faces an immediate crisis. A response to that also needs to be immediate," Hood said.

Now that the session has ended, the parties are looking ahead to the 2014 legislative elections.

Pierce, the Democratic leader, thinks the Republicans have hurt themselves with their rapid and far-reaching changes. Moral Monday organizers have said their goal has been to energize voters to unseat Republicans.

The Democrats probably won't win back majorities, Pierce said, but they could pick off some of the Republicans in swing districts.

"We just feel like we could get 10 seats" in the House, he said. The tighter ratio would give the Democrats more leverage, he said.

Hood questions whether the Democrats will see much gain.

The Moral Monday movement is less focused on specific issues than the tea party movement of 2009, Hood said, which turned out Democrats in 2010 in reaction to bailouts and President Obama's health care reform.

Further, "Many North Carolinians have no idea what the legislature has done," Hood said. "Many North Carolinians who are uninformed about the legislature's actions will be pleasantly surprised when they find out about them."

Staff writer Paul Woolverton can be reached at woolvertonp@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3512.

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